


wave/shore

by figure8



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous Relationships, Companion Piece, Friends With Benefits, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:15:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: “No,” Junhui says. Mingyu believes him. His voice is the voice of someone who’s telling the truth. “Minghao’s my best friend. That’s a different kind of love.”Seokmin is my best friend too,Mingyu wants to say; only that’s not exactly true, is it?
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Lee Seokmin | DK, Kim Mingyu/Wen Jun Hui | Jun, Lee Seokmin | DK/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 16
Kudos: 208
Collections: K-Pop Ficmix 2020





	wave/shore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earthshaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthshaker/gifts).
  * Inspired by [heartsick/homesick](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18286724) by [nfwmb (earthshaker)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthshaker/pseuds/nfwmb). 



> dear earthshaker,  
> heartsick/homesick is one of my very favorite fics. i am honored to have had the occasion to remix it. i tried to keep the disjointed-but-coherent feel of your non linear narrative here; the structure of the story is one of its strongest points, in my opinion. i hope i did it justice— please know this was written with love. 
> 
> to everyone else, i highly recommend reading the original fic first! this will make _much_ more sense with it in mind.

_ Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness _

_ And the infinite tenderness shattered you like a jar. _

— PABLO NERUDA

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When Minghao’s flight finally takes off, the first thing Seokmin does is close his eyes, inhale deeply. On his right, Mingyu reaches for his hand blindly, intertwines their fingers together and holds tight,  _ tight,  _ until Seokmin squeezes back in acknowledgement. 

“I feel awful,” Seokmin says. “I know I said I was fine, but actually I feel like  _ garbage.” _

“I know,” Mingyu says softly. He doesn’t tell Seokmin that he too is stunned, his stomach twisting on itself, Minghao’s absence already so sharp in a way Mingyu didn’t expect. It tastes disrespectful on his tongue, when Seokmin is standing in the middle of SFO with half his heart up in the air. 

“Okay,” Seokmin shakes his head. Like a dog fresh out of the water, like his sadness is liquid. 

“Okay?” Junhui asks. He’s playing with his keys. Mingyu knows that restlessness, how Junhui will buzz out of his own skin rather than admit that he is upset. He’ll have to deal with that one later. One problem at a time.

“Okay,” Seokmin repeats. He smiles, lips pressed together too tight. “Let’s go get the car before this stupid airport robs us blind in parking fees.”

  
  


🌉

  
  


Mingyu meets Lee Seokmin during Rush his freshman year of college and never recovers. 

He’s eighteen, stupid and eager and not quite ready to be himself just yet. He’s been through three frat houses already this evening and at this point his body is more beer than blood. When he sees Seokmin, white dress shirt drenched from a water gun fight and hair slicked back, grin half-moon, Mingyu seriously considers going back to his dorm room. He’s played this game once already in high school. He didn’t move halfway across the state to make the same mistakes. 

In the end, he stays because a girl in mini shorts shoves a red cup into his hands and dares him to chug it. The horrid mixture of tabasco sauce and alcohol at least has the merit of distracting him from pretty boys in wet shirts whose name might as well be Bad Idea. Two hours later, so drunk he cannot feel his own face, he stumbles right into Seokmin’s chest. It’s firm and warm under Mingyu’s palms. At least his button-down has dried. Small mercies. 

“You okay?” he asks. He’s holding Mingyu by the arms. Mingyu cannot stop staring at the line of his throat where his shirt is slightly open. He thought he had left this particular habit behind him in the locker rooms of his high school back in San Diego, but clearly he was mistaken. 

“I’m okay,” he says, but he’s not, not really, and he doesn’t think he will ever be. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


“You okay?” Seokmin checks in, grinning.

“Fuck,” Mingyu rasps, glares at him. “Don’t stop, I’m almost there.”

Seokmin chuckles fondly, and then he goes back to fingering Mingyu at the steadiest, most infuriating rhythm. Mingyu’s cock spurts precome onto his abs, twitching. He’s  _ so hard.  _ In any other circumstance he’d be touching himself already, but Seokmin is conducting an  _ experiment,  _ and because of that Mingyu’s wrists are tied to the headboard with the nicest tie he owns. 

“Please,” Mingyu pleads. He’s not sure he likes the way his voice sounds even to his own ears, this plaintive whine. “Please, I’m so close, can you please just— just  _ touch  _ me—”

“We said we were going to see if you could come with just my fingers,” Seokmin tuts, still so awfully  _ conversational.  _ He’s also fully dressed, which is really throwing Mingyu off kilter. When they are both naked they are both vulnerable. When they are both  _ dressed,  _ which is still mostly how it happens, jeans barely shoved down to their knees for quick handjobs when their free time aligns, well. There is something atrociously reassuring about that. Maybe because it reminds Mingyu of storage rooms and dark corners under the bleachers. Things straight boys do and never talk about. 

But this, Seokmin with his pants zipped and his sweater on and one hand on Mingyu’s knee keeping his legs spread while he fucks him with the other, this is something else entirely. This is undeniably _ queer.  _ It makes something hot and sticky unfurl at the pit of Mingyu’s gut, pleasure liquid and catastrophic like lava. The room they share is quiet, window to the courtyard and not to the road. In the early afternoon there are barely any sounds; only Mingyu moaning softly and the squelch of lube, and the heel of Seokmin’s hand hitting Mingyu’s ass with every thrust. 

It hits Mingyu like lightning. Usually he can sense it building up— not this time. 

“Seokmin,” he says, strangled, “I’m gonna come.”

“Yes,” Seokmin says, and it is very tender. A wave crashes over Mingyu. He shouts. Seokmin leans down to kiss him. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


“Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if just one thing had happened differently?” Mingyu asks.

Minghao looks back at him. On the shore, Junhui and Seokmin are play-fighting, splashing each other, their boards abandoned. It’s one of the things Mingyu likes about Minghao— how he always gives people his full attention, one thing at a time. He doesn’t multitask because he knows he cannot do it. 

“Sometimes,” he says. Mingyu waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.

“I came to USF because they offered me a full ride, you know? But I got into Tisch too, and it would have been… I don’t know. Would have had to work on the side, but I would have been closer to my dad’s place, and I would have been— you know. Not a business major.”

“If I could do it all over again,” Minghao says, “I would go to art school.” 

He turns to the sea again. Seokmin catches him looking, beams at him, grin rivaling the sun. Mingyu follows his quiet train of thought. 

“But then you wouldn’t have met him.”

“Is it stupid?” Minghao doesn’t often ask for anyone’s advice, let alone  _ Mingyu’s,  _ on these matters. “I know we’re too young to say shit like this. I used to make fun of girls that followed their boyfriends to college.”

“That’s not quite what you’re doing,” Mingyu notes. 

“Yeah, but I think I get it now,” Minghao says. “Would you enter a time machine, go to New York?”

“Maybe,” Mingyu says. “Yes.” 

He’s not like Minghao. He’s not in love. He likes his life, but he thinks he could like his life somewhere else too. 

“Mingyu!” Junhui yells. “Are you coming?” 

Behind him the sun is setting, slowly disappearing into purple clouds. Junhui is less sharp like this, bathed in warm orange light. Mingyu wants to put his hands on all his angles. He takes off his shirt, walks to where the water comes to kiss the sand before retreating, endless dance. Junhui cups his nape, leans in and puts his mouth on Mingyu’s. He tastes like salt and iodine. His wetsuit is still damp. 

They tumble into the water, Junhui laughing, pulling Mingyu down along with him. Mingyu is glad he had the presence of mind to leave his tee shirt behind. Knees in the sand, Junhui kisses him again, palms warm on Mingyu’s cheeks. When they separate he’s grinning, like he’s so happy to have Mingyu with him that he can’t contain the way his own face is moving. Mingyu isn’t used to being looked at like this. 

He thinks he would like to be. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


Mingyu has only known Junhui and Minghao three weeks when they go clubbing for the first time all together. Under the strobing lights everything tastes sharper. On Mingyu’s tongue vodka mixes with old, sour insecurities. The bar counter is throbbing under his hand, pulsing at the rhythm of the song playing overwhelmingly loud over the speakers, bass thumping through his bloodstream. Maybe it is this feeling of being possessed by the music that makes him ask his half question. He pokes Junhui in the arm, mumbles. His eyes don’t leave the dance floor where Minghao and Seokmin are dancing plastered against each other. 

“Do you..?”

Junhui follows his gaze, lands on Minghao. He smiles. It is very tender. He does not press Mingyu to verbalize it further, and for that Mingyu is very grateful. 

“No,” he says. Mingyu believes him. His voice is the voice of someone who’s telling the truth. “He’s my best friend. That’s a different kind of love.”

_ Seokmin is my best friend too,  _ Mingyu wants to say; only that’s not exactly true, is it? 

“You know,” Junhui says, “You look at him with so much envy. I can never figure out what exactly you are jealous of.” 

The gratefulness is gone, replaced now with something like smoke, acrid. It is a hollow feeling. Mingyu does not enjoy being discovered. 

“I’m not jealous of Seokmin,” he says very quietly. He’s still pressed close enough to him that Junhui hears it. “You don’t know me,” he adds, defensiveness like a bat wrapped in barbed wire. 

But that’s a lie again, and even in his near-constant state of denial Mingyu knows that. He wants so much of what Seokmin has. The ease with which he laughs and reaches out and seems to just  _ collect  _ friends around campus. The guts it took for him to switch his major, when Mingyu is still stuck swallowing equations and graphs that he already knows he’s never going to use. His parents’ acceptance, even incomplete and clumsy. Seokmin is everything Mingyu pretends to be. 

Junhui must see something on his face, because his expression turns concerned, and when he puts his hand on Mingyu’s forearm it lacks his usual assertiveness. Mingyu shakes him off, not because he does not want to be touched, but because he does not want to be touched like something fragile. He elbows his way through the crowd, his stomach twisting on itself, his lungs suddenly terribly hungry for fresh air. 

Junhui, damn him— bless him— follows him outside, to the alley behind the club where Mingyu leans against a brick wall and swallows big gulps of oxygen like a drowned man fished out of water. 

“I’m sorry,” Junhui grimaces. “It’s not an excuse, but, ADHD.” He gestures vaguely, a half circle with his left hand. “No filter in general and even less of a filter when I’m drunk.” 

“No,” Mingyu croaks. “You were right.” 

Junhui shakes his head. “It was still a shitty thing to say. I think it’s the setting, you know. There’s something about gay clubs that makes it feel like, I don’t know. Everyone’s your friend for the night. And so you just say shit.”

“You’re my friend,” Mingyu frowns. It’s the three vodka sodas talking.

Junhui’s mouth lifts into a smile. “Am I?” 

“Yeah,” Mingyu decides on the spot. “You can buy me shawarma next door to apologize for hurting my feelings. You know, like a friend.” 

Junhui’s grin is a blazing sun in the night. “Now you’re just milking it,” he laughs, but he offers Mingyu his hand and pulls him up.

Around a mouthful of lamb and pita, thighs pressed together with Mingyu’s on the red vinyl bench in the one booth at the window of the little Lebanese fast food shop, Junhui tells him he’s sorry again. Above him the cheap neon lights flicker and flicker again, turning him phantomically pale. On the table Mingyu’s cell phone vibrates twice. 

“I think it’s Seokmin,” he tells Junhui dumbly instead of accepting his apology. 

“You’re gonna pick up?” Junhui asks, one eyebrow arched. 

Mingyu thinks about it. Seokmin is with Minghao, who only had one beer the entire evening. 

“No,” he says, turning his phone screen down. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


“Hey, wanna come to this study group thing with me? For ECON 235.” Seokmin asks one morning as he’s lacing his shoes. 

Mingyu doesn’t look away from the mirror where he’s fixing his hair. “Since when do you do study group?” he laughs. Seokmin remains pointedly silent. When Mingyu turns to face him his cheeks are tinged red. Mingyu arches an eyebrow.

“Okay,” Seokmin says. “There’s this dude.” 

It’s been months since the last time they had sex, months since Mingyu told Seokmin that maybe they should stop, but it still hurts to see the blatant interest on Seokmin’s face, the dreamy air in his eyes. Mingyu swallows down the bitterness on his tongue and wills himself to be a good friend. This is why they’re not sleeping together anymore, he reminds himself. Because Mingyu is  _ being a good friend.  _

“There’s this dude?” he repeats, encouraging. 

“I, uh, spilled my coffee on his shirt? One thing led to another. I think we’re friends? Or we’re getting there.” 

“Very rom-com of you,” Mingyu laughs. That, at least, is sincere. Even when they fight, Seokmin is infuriatingly endearing. And they’re not  _ fighting  _ right now. They’re just— in a weird place. Or maybe they aren’t, maybe it’s all in Mingyu’s head. A lot of things seem to be, lately. 

“You brought me here as a  _ distraction,” _ he hisses under his breath the second they’re in the library and Seokmin points to the table his  _ friend  _ is waiting out. Friends, actually, plural. There is a second guy there, blond hair bleach-fried, grin sun-bright. Mingyu elbows Seokmin in the ribs and Seokmin whines. 

“Sorry,” he whispers. “You wouldn’t have come if I had told you.” 

Mingyu doesn’t dignify that with a reply except for the roll of his eyes. He dutifully takes the seat next to the light-haired dude, who introduces himself as Junhui. 

He wants to say that he spends the next two hours dividing his attention between the actual class material and analyzing his best friend’s interactions with his crush so that he and Seokmin can go over everything together later, but that is simply not what happens. Junhui is terribly distracting. He’s loud, first of all. Not the annoying kind of loud— or at least not for the corner of the library they’re in, Mingyu would  _ definitely  _ be mad if they were on the quiet floor and God knows he has no volume control himself. But he is— bubbly. Excitable like a fizzy drink, free-handed with his smiles and even more lavish with his touch. Mingyu exits the building  _ buzzing,  _ his skin still tingling where Junhui put his hand over and over as he gesticulated his way through the labor theory of value. 

It’s also that Junhui is beautiful. Mingyu has ample time to reassess that over the next few weeks, because Seokmin  _ keeps  _ dragging him to these sessions like Mingyu is his safety blanket. Junhui is still beautiful the next Friday, and then the next. Mingyu loses entire chunks of time to the sharp line of his jaw, the mole right above the corner of his mouth, the bright glint in his eyes. Seokmin would tease him about it, he’s sure, if he wasn’t busy draping himself over Minghao in ways that are  _ bound  _ to eventually get them kicked out of Gleeson forever. 

Mingyu is used to attractive people. He’s in a frat, most of the men around him on a daily basis are at least somehow  _ ripped.  _ If Mingyu lost his mind every time he was around a hot boy, he would never get anything done. Junhui is  _ pretty,  _ in a way that transforms Mingyu’s eyes into magnets, but it’s bound to lose its novelty eventually. He’s not mad at it, actually. Maybe a harmless crush is exactly what he needs to get over Seokmin for real, be the friend Seokmin so clearly wants him to be. Mingyu is tired of the ache that always comes with watching him. He wants new pains, new bruises to press his fingers experimentally into. 

So Junhui is good, in that sense. Welcome, godsent. A band-aid for a gunshot, but for now Mingyu is happy to have something to put on the wound at all. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


“Shit,” Mingyu swears, the realization hitting him like a freight train. 

From the balcony, Junhui makes a questioning, concerned sound. Mingyu can see him through the open door, elbows resting on the balustrade. Half of him, really, the other half swallowed by the soft afternoon shadow. The smoke from his one indulgent cigarette is curling upwards. Mingyu wishes he had his camera at hand.

“I’m fine,” he says, voice loud enough for Junhui to hear him from outside. Junhui crushes the butt of the cigarette in the heavy glass ashtray Mingyu keeps on the small plastic table there and walks back inside, closes the glass door carefully behind him. The sun hits his silhouette in the backlight, and Mingyu  _ has  _ to take out his phone, image quality and artistry be damned. 

“Don’t move,” he orders. It comes out hoarse. Junhui emits a short, fond laugh, but he obeys. Mingyu snaps three pictures, repeated shots. When he puts his iPhone down Junhui advances towards him, leonine, and swings a leg over Migyu’s thighs to straddle him in the armchair he’s lounging on. Mingyu’s free hand immediately goes to rest on his hip. 

“Am I your muse, then?” Junhui asks in a murmur, clearly teasing. His smile is eating half his face. 

Mingyu’s mouth is very dry. “I like you here,” he says instead of replying to the question. “Jun, I want you here all the time.” 

It’s not the confession he should be making. The real one is stuck halfway in his throat, entangled in his vocal chords. Junhui’s eyes sparkle anyway. When he leans down to kiss him, palm on Mingyu’s chest to balance himself, Mingyu arches up to meet him halfway. There is something terribly metaphorical about that, he thinks, and then he promptly stops thinking. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


Seokmin shakes him awake at one in the morning on the day Minghao is due back to China. 

“Gyu.  _ Gyu.  _ Mingyu.” 

“Fuck,” Mingyu groans, rolling over in his bed. “Seokminnie, what the fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Seokmin whispers, fast. “Junhui’s car won’t start and Minghao needs someone to drive him to the airport.” 

“I’m going to kill you,” Mingyu sighs, dragging a hand down his face. He’s fully awake now. The inside of his eyes burns. “I’m not driving your boyfriend to SFO, are you fucking kidding me.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Seokmin answers reflexively. Even in the penumbra Mingyu can see him blushing. He swats him with his second pillow. “Can I borrow your car?”

“I’m going to  _ kill  _ you,” Mingyu repeats with emphasis. “Just steal the fucking keys like a normal human being.” 

He can’t fall back asleep, after Seokmin leaves. Stares at the ceiling for what feels like an hour. It is so strange, how unnoticeable  _ absence  _ can be. When was the last time he looked at Seokmin and felt a tug low in his gut? He doesn’t think he could pinpoint it. All that remains is this horrible fondness, but the poison has been sucked from his veins. 

He remembers his sister telling him about her first love, when Mingyu was still in high school.  _ Everything always feels so fucking life or death, and then suddenly it doesn’t. You’ll ask yourself how you could have been so stupid, to ever think someone could matter so much, and then next thing you know there is someone else and you lose all sense of moderation all over again.  _

  
  


🌉

  
  


“Tell me a secret,” Junhui demands. 

Mingyu thinks about it.  _ I’m gay,  _ he could say. It’s technically a secret, although not for Junhui.  _ I’m in love with Seokmin,  _ but this too, he’s practically sure, Junhui has already figured out.  _ I can’t stop looking at you. They say after three months attraction fades, but the way your t-shirt stretches across your shoulders is all I’ve been able to think about for five days straight.  _

“I like Shake Shack better than In-N-Out,” Mingyu tells him, chuckling. 

  
  


🌉

Seokmin is unbearable while Minghao is in Anshan. Mingyu bears him anyway, because he loves him, one way or another. 

“Stop checking your phone,” he wraps his hand around Seokmin’s wrist. “It’s three in the fucking morning over there. He’s asleep.”

“He stays awake to text me,” Seokmin says, managing to sound simultaneously worried and proud. Mingyu smiles wide despite himself. 

“You’re disgusting.” 

Seokmin pushes the bowl of salted peanuts towards him. He slurps up the last of his frozen margarita. 

“Do you mind? Like, for real.”

That sounds like a serious question. Seokmin’s  _ eyes  _ are very serious, at least. 

Mingyu frowns. “Mind what?”

“Me and Minghao.”

“Is there something for me to mind?”

Seokmin sways on his chair, once, twice, before replying. “I told you, he said—”

“I know what he told you at the airport,” Mingyu interrupts him. “I’m not talking about that, I know you two are— well, you’ve been for a while, anyway. Just. Seokmin, are we going to talk about it?”

“I just feel really presumptuous,” Seokmin says, looking away. His whole face is pink. A terrible, overwhelming wave of affection crashes over Mingyu. 

He pokes Seokmin in the arm with his little paper cocktail umbrella. “That’s an SAT word, congrats.” 

“Shut up,” Seokmin glares. Then, softer, “Are you still in love with me?”

“No,” Mingyu says. He waits for the flash of hurt in Seokmin’s eyes, waits for it with illicit anticipation. He feels a little sick when it doesn’t come. “Yes,” he amends, in the name of honesty. “I’m always going to be, I think. You’re my best friend. I think, on some level, I’m always going to want you to be  _ mine.  _ Does that make sense?” 

_ “Mingyu,” _ Seokmin says, pained. He says it like it is an entire sentence. “Yes,” he adds after a beat of silence. “Yeah, it does make sense.” 

“But I’m happy for you,” Mingyu assures him, and as the words pass his lips he knows it to be true. “And I like him. He’s good for you, but it’s not just that. I like him.”

Seokmin gives him a look, then. His mouth curls up in the faintest way, and his eyes turn into stars. Mingyu wants to hug him so bad. Wants to just— press their bodies together. Feel him. Not in a sexual way, just— just. 

“Okay,” Seokmin shakes his head. “Okay, that’s enough feelings for tonight.”

Mingyu huffs out a short laugh, relieved. “Thank God. I’m not built for this.”

“Shut up, Pisces moon,” Seokmin rolls his eyes. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


Minghao wants to drive down the PCH, wants the real California road trip experience before he leaves for good, like in the movies. They pile into Junhui’s grey Prius with four iced coffees and a long Spotify playlist on a breezy Saturday morning. Junhui takes the first round of driving because it’s his car, but on the first occasion he dumps the responsibility onto Seokmin to join Mingyu in the backseat. Seokmin doesn’t mind, Mingyu knows, because Minghao gets car sick easily and as such has claimed shotgun privileges for the whole ride down to LA, and Seokmin wants to be the closest possible to him all the time.  _ Mingyu  _ does not mind either, even if it means he’s consigned to the back of the car with the one backpack that didn’t fit in the trunk digging into his side, because it means he and Junhui can spend every minute they’re not driving necking like teenagers. Seokmin very pointedly turns the music up when the kissing grows filthy, but Mingyu cannot find it in himself to care— not when Junhui is licking into his mouth like there is something fundamental to it, a truth he can only discover behind Mingyu’s teeth. He’s holding Mingyu by the jaw, and only the vague awareness they are in a moving vehicle with two of their friends is keeping Mingyu from growing  _ fully  _ hard in his jeans. 

They stop at one of the beaches after Half Moon Bay, and Mingyu jumps into the saltwater headfirst in lieu of a cold shower. When he comes out Minghao and Seokmin are already lounging on a large towel, Seokmin out of his wetsuit and wearing a dry pair of board shorts, his head pillowed on Minghao’s thighs while Minghao cards gentle fingers through his damp hair. 

Minghao smiles up at him, barely suppresses a yawn. “Junhui went to look for the restroom,” he answers Mingyu’s unasked question. 

“I’m gonna go change,” Mingyu tells them, motioning to the wooden changing rooms standing in a neat little row behind them. His skin is tingling, both from the harshness of the slow wind against his wet body and from the leftover simmering arousal from the car. 

Junhui, exactly as Mingyu expected, is waiting for him leaning nonchalantly against one of the small cabins. He pushes Mingyu into the wooden door and kisses him open-mouthed and demanding. 

“Fuck,” Mingyu grunts when they finally tumble inside and Junhui flicks the flimsy lock shut, “Jun, fuck.”

Junhui’s expression is very amused, but his irises are so, so very dark. Mingyu tugs him closer by the belt loop of his stonewashed jean shorts. 

  
  


🌉

  
  


“Heard you asked Junhui to move in with you,” Seokmin teases. They were not supposed to see each other before their weekly Sunday brunch ritual, both their schedules packed up like crazy, but Mingyu sent a desperate plea to the groupchat for  _ someone _ to come help him at the gallery and Seokmin’s afternoon had miraculously cleared up.

“Shit,” Mingyu swears, but he’s laughing. “I told him not to tell you before I could.” 

Seokmin shakes his head, chortling. “When has Junhui ever kept his mouth shut about anything?” 

Mingyu can think of multiple scenarios, but none of them are PG-13, and so he remains pointedly silent. 

“Should I be on the lookout for proposal spots?” Seokmin asks after, when all the canvases have been mounted to the wall and Mingyu has taken out two beers from the mini fridge he keeps in his office. “Sharing a flat in LA, that’s as good as hitched.”

Mingyu feels his cheeks overheat. “Shut up.” 

“Seriously,” Seokmin insists. “I’m your best man, right? You’re not gonna ask Wonwoo or some shit like that?” 

“Wonwoo would be Jun’s best man,” Mingyu says absently, and then his brain catches up with his mouth. “No one is getting married,” he hisses. Seokmin laughs at him, but it is very tender. 

It occurs to him then, that Seokmin is just trying to distract himself from the elephant in the room. 

_ I miss him too,  _ Mingyu wants to say, but that would be insensitive more than anything else. Even Junhui, who loves Minghao ardently, like a brother, does not bring that up where Seokmin can hear. 

“Of course you’re my best man,” he says instead, bumping their shoulders together. “You’re gonna sing, too. Don’t think you’re getting out of it.” 

  
  


🌉

  
  


He kisses Junhui for the first time drunk, in a badly lit street at one in the morning on a Thursday night, a sloppy crash of lips and teeth, and then proceeds to empty the contents of his stomach on the pavement, only narrowly avoiding Junhui’s shoes. Junhui does not say anything, but he hands him a tissue and buys him a bottle of cold water from the nearest corner store. 

He kisses Junhui for the second time the next day, very softly, mouth closed. He’s in Junhui’s bed and he’s wearing Junhui’s pajamas. The whole place smells like Chinese food and there is a cacophony of sounds coming from the kitchen, a young voice mingling with older ones, which is how Mingyu remembers  _ very  _ briskly that Junhui lives with his parents. Junhui smiles against his lips like he can read his mind. 

“Sorry for puking on you yesterday,” Mingyu mumbles. 

“Give yourself a little credit,” Junhui says, eyes sparkling. “You had  _ very  _ good aim for someone this wasted.” 

He fucks Junhui for the first time seven days later, in his dorm room, a sock on the doorknob. He does not have the words to quantify that kind of want. Once he has Junhui naked in his bed it suddenly feels like he’ll die if their skin is not touching. Junhui must feel the same, somehow, because his hands don’t leave Mingyu’s body once, roaming everywhere. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Mingyu says, aware that he sounds very stupid but unable to formulate another thought. When he sinks into Junhui’s waiting heat he is struck by something akin to awe. It punches the air from his lungs. 

“Mingyu,” Junhui gasps. His hand is in Mingyu’s hair.  _ I want to be closer than this,  _ Mingyu thinks deliriously. Junhui pulls him down to kiss him, to pant into his mouth. “Mingyu,” he says again, and then, “Baby,” and then, “Fuck me,” and then,  _ please.  _

  
  


🌉

  
  


“Do you want us to drive you to the airport?” Junhui asks. He’s absent-mindedly toying with his fork. Mingyu slides his plate towards him, two bites of apple pie left, and Junhui doesn’t take his eyes off Seokmin on the other side of the table but he squeezes Mingyu’s thigh under it in silent thanks. 

Seokmin shakes his head. “No, I’ll rent a car. Thank you, I know you guys are super busy and I appreciate the offer, but I—”

“Honey,” Junhui says, waving away his apology. “If I hadn’t seen Mingyu in three years I wouldn’t want anyone else around either.” 

Seokmin blushes  _ terribly  _ at that. Mingyu chuckles. 

“It’s not the same,” Seokmin mumbles. Junhui’s smile turns kind and warm in a way that makes Mingyu want to build a  _ city  _ for him. 

“Isn’t it?” 

“I don’t know,” Seokmin says. “There’s like, this rational thing, right, that tells me not to get my hopes up.” 

“Fuck rationality,” Mingyu huffs. 

“What does your heart say?” Junhui asks, because that’s just how he speaks. 

Something very certain solidifies in Seokmin’s gaze. Mingyu doesn’t think he’s even aware of it. 

“That he will walk out of that plane and that everything will be the same,” he says.

Junhui tilts his head to the side, licks off the last crumbs of pie off his fork. “Fuck rationality, then,” he grins. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you’ve enjoyed this, i would love to hear your thoughts ❤️


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